Children Are Reflections

Whether you're a parent or not, you've seen children running about the landscape. These smaller versions of ourselves are not quite clones though they share genetic material with their parents, but what a lot of parents don't realize is that these little people are shameless reflections of their parents' lives. Kids do say the darnedest things...provided they heard it somewhere else first. Sure, sometimes children out think their parents and come up with ideas that their parents never dreamed of, but what I'm referring to are those awkward moments where junior does something, and mom's face turns a bright, brilliant shade of red.

What inspired this particular writing was a post someone popped on Facebook where they had communicated the movie title of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to their three year old. Now, the word "chitty" would be unfamiliar to anyone who has never heard of this movie or the Ian Fleming novel that inspired it. They're both kind of a head trip, and the film even includes a child molester, though there are no explicit references to this character being one, but I digress. This child responded to the title by repeating it using the best language he could match up to what he just heard: Really Sh*tty Bang Bang. Naturally, a good laugh was had by all.

What this person doesn't realize is that the one post communicates to the entire world exactly the type of language they tend to use around their child. After all, to come up with that, he would have had to have heard the words before, if not that two word phrase proceeding the Bang Bang.

If you watch children as they go about their world, you'll find all kinds of interesting facts about their parents that mom and dad never wanted out there. This is beyond just the words they use on an every day basis that they'd rather you not know about. Kids have really big mouths, and they'll tell anyone anywhere everything about everything they know if someone is willing to listen. If there are any secrets that you don't want divulged, you'd best not discuss it around the little ones.

How about that temper? Guess who will be the first to show the world how you react to stress? Give that little tyke something to frustrate him, and he'll demonstrate how well he's learned to deal with frustration by watching you. In fact, your kids want to be just like you. You are the template for their lives, and they see you as their model for how to live their lives. If you've ever wanted someone to idolize you and your every move, have children; they do this automatically...whether you like it or not.

Now, of course, children aren't mean or try to embarrass you on purpose. They don't learn that until later. In reality, they only want to make mom and dad happy with them. I recall getting onto one of mine for taking off across a parking lot once. She wasn't trying to be bad or run off. She saw the basket corral and wanted to help by getting a basket. I had to explain that as sweet as that was, she can't just take off running across a parking lot because it's dangerous.

Anyway, the point is that having children basically opens your house to everyone in the world who interacts with your kids. At some point they'll go to school, and since the school age is dropping to four (the Queen teaches four year olds in a public school now), that means their mouth control with strangers (and teachers who they also trust and idolize) is going to be that much less.

Sit back and think about everything you've ever done and said in front of your child. Now, realize that your little angel is going to tell every single person they come into contact with all of that variously at one time or another during their first few years in school before they've learned that they really shouldn't. Their teachers will get to know every sordid detail as the child just babbles on about your insecurities, embarrassments, description of what you look like naked if they've ever caught you with your pants down, problems, triumphs, imperfections, and every word your mouth has ever uttered in their presence. Oh yes, and if you have any foul opinions of the school or their teachers, take care not to say any of that in front of the children because their teachers will find that out too.

Let's face it. Kids are the spies the government has been dreaming of. Sleep tight.

Polyglot

Most people I know go through life speaking one language. English, obviously. Nothing nationalist about it. I'm writing this in English, so it would stand to reason that most of the people I know also speak English. No need to make a fuss about it.

As for me, maybe it's because I'm a writer and language is my thing, but I always wanted to speak more than one language. Someone who speaks two languages is bilingual. Three languages, I guess, would be triligual, but you get up past that, and you have maybe polylingual, if you want to describe them, but the term for a person who speaks multiple languages with fluency is polyglot. It sounds weird, but it would be awesome to speak so many languages. To be able to go about anywhere in the world and be able to communicate with the locals.

I suspect, however, that I've gone about it totally the wrong since to date I can still only really speak English. I've worked on Spanish, mind you. Been studying Spanish for years and years, but if you play a movie in Spanish, I can still only understand a small piece of it. But do I stop there? No sir. I try to learn French, Italian, German, Russian, Japanese, and how do I do?

Well, not very well, to be honest. I get part way through one and get distracted. I work on Spanish and try for another one on the side as well, and yet, I get stuck. My main problem? Well, I think it's because I'm learning in a vacuum with no one to speak with and no reason to actually learn the language. I'm not taking any trips, nor do I have an actual reason to learn any of them.

I think this whole post is completely derailed. I was going down a path that I thought was good, but I've devolved into complaining. Sucks really. Oh well, if I got you to read this far, then I did something right. Ha.

Now if you'll forgive me, I see something shiny that must be chased.

Popular People

You know, I recently went over a shameless list of search terms and while looking over trends, I noticed how Miley Cyrus actually popped up a lot in several trending lists. Actress, musical artist, people (did you know she was a person?), and teen pop artist. I never watched her show, Hannah Montana, though I do have the misfortunate of recalling her father, Billy Ray Cyrus's tune, Achy Breaky Heart. I much prefer the Weird Al knock-off, Achy Break Song, where he begs not to ever play that song again.

One thing I will admit, however, based on what I do know about young Miley is that she actually does have some singing chops. I've listened to quite a few of her songs, and it isn't bad. Her older stuff is fairly bubble gum, but some of the more recent is quite passable. I also found it interesting that she is more popular than everyone's favorite teen punching bag, Justin Bieber, at least as a search result. And of course, a big search engine welcome to Cory Monteith of Glee fame, which is another show I've never watch, but I totally clicked on his name to find a Wikipedia article written in his honor.

Hm, it says he's Canadian. That's not remotely interesting.

Naturally, William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are right near the top of the list what with that new royal English baby they got going on. Prince William being the second in line to the rather pointless throne of England behind his father. I watched an Animaniacs episode once that had Prince Charles, William's father who was married to the illustrious Princess Diana (I bet he felt so lucky to get with someone so popular), as a character, and at one point, Yakko (probably) asked him, "Who died and made you king?" to which the downtrodden Prince Charles replied with a sniffle, "Nobody." Laughed out loud every time. I still laugh out loud at that. Well, I'm not laughing right now, since I would distract the people around me, but if I were alone and actually watching the episode instead of merely replying it in my head, I would probably laugh...every time. That's a probable chance of an every time laugh right there.

It is worth noting that Kate out trends William in the search. That'll show him. I'm not sure what it'll show him, but it just will(iam).

And before I drop this shameless post, I'll just shout out to Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Donald Trump. No reason, really. Just thought I'd include them because I can. As someone in charge of one aspect of my life makes clear, when you're in charge, you can do what you want. Happy Sunday.

Holding Doors

When I go to lunch, I will occasionally wander through our parking garage over here just to stretch my legs. In doing so, I simply walk out to where the lucky saps who get first floor parking go and just walk up the ramps. I avoid the stairwell entirely, which can create the occasional awkward situation when well-meaning people don't understand the etiquette of when to hold doors open.

Surely you've come across this before where you approach a door and the previous person, who you vaguely remember cutting you off when they arrived, has reached the door and is now holding it open. They're holding it open for you. You're still at least 10-15 seconds from reaching that door at your present pace, so what do you do? Keep the pace and take that full time? Do you speed up and run through the door to minimize the time of the person holding the door. Or simply scowl at the door holder before deciding to take a lap around the building once you reach the door and waste their time entirely for having cut you off only to enter the building at the same time (you know that was the guy - you recognize that massive nose a mile away).

What makes this scenario even weirder is that when the person for whom the door is held finally reaches the door, they tend to apologize for taking so long. What precipitates the apology? It wasn't as if they saw the potential holder in the parking lot and said, "Oh, hey stranger, mind holding that door for me that we can't even see yet? I'll be there double quick." No, the guy let himself in the building, glanced back and saw a possible one night stand and decided to go for it (you know that's what he was thinking - why do you think the chicks dig the nose?).

So there I am, walking out on my lunch time constitutional, and I am confronted with the open door. I didn't see the person open the door since I was still around the corner, but you know, they saw me coming, and pop goes the door. What do I do? Some dude holding the door for me, a random guy walking to the garage. Do I say something? Apologize that I didn't let him know my plans before he got that door for me? Waive politely and sheepishly as I pass by while avoiding eye contact at my shame of not taking his open door offer? Change my plans, and take the door anyway to be polite, and then sneak out once he's safely in the elevator? What if he doesn't take the elevator? Do I go to the second floor and walk about from there? What if he propositions me? This could get really awkward really quickly. What if he takes my acceptance of his open door invitation as a metaphorical acceptance to a "open door" invitation? That smile as I approach could mean anything.

I stop, pat my pockets, and turn around to return back inside for the keys I completely did not forget and jingle in my pocket as I give up on my quest for a walkabout.

A few minutes later, when I can be sure that the seedy door holder has moved on to easier prey, I return to the garage to get that walk in. I approach the door to the stairwell. Someone walks out, and ... crap.

Search Engines

You how some people can drive traffic to their blogs and such? They make certain to speak of certain very popular topics that appear in the top rungs of search engines. It's easy enough to locate these things, especially if oyu pop into Yahoo. They kindly place topics like Ken Griffey Jr. and Bernie Kosar right at the top of the lists of things trending now. Even weird stuff like dufnering and lobster shell disease shows up pretty near the top of things that people are currently searching for.

These lists of items really help to place your finger on the pulse of what people are talking about the most right now. What's on TV? Why, Breaking Bad, of course. Movies? Elysium is right there at number nine. People are even still searching for info on that Fukushima disaster along with weird stuff like Clown Obama Missouri, India aircraft carrier, and for some reason, a 1912 eighth grade exam. makes me wonder if some of this stuff isn't just a plant to make people search for stuff, like when people searched for cat videos and Mitt Romney eating hot dogs (hint: they liked to photoshop them).

Time was, people would search for Paris Hilton and Justin Bieber, but I imagine those only come up when new stuff of their comes out, though the Hilton deal was more about the sex tape than anything else which is why Pamela Anderson tended to crop up in people's search results as well. Of course, digging deeper will find you Erwin Schrödinger and the cat he never had, Katy Perry, AMC, and Usain Bolt as some of the top searches along with the Teen Choice Awards, hannah Anderson, and a meteor shower.

I hope you've enjoyed this shameless search term plugging post, and hey, maybe I'll do another one soon that's just as uninformative and shameless.

No Thought Given

So I am supposed to call people to help them through their technological problems, and most of the time, I have to leave them a message. Not only do these people have problems answering their phone, they also have issues calling back. And then, when they do, they act surprised that I need to get into their machine to help them (goes with the territory of a locally installed application).

Such was the case with this person. I left a message this morning, and this lady called back pretty soon thereafter. I was impressed. Then I said I needed to get onto the machine, and well, she was like, it is working right now, so you can't actually see the problem. It's a big job, too, and will take awhile before it finishes. I tell her this is fine because I can look at some of the data I need without disturbing the job it's doing.

She notes that, well, she isn't next to that machine. It's a few desks over. Then silence. It should not have been a surprise that I would want to see the problem and want to look into it. I finally tell her that I am open to suggestions, and she says she'll call back when it is done.

Why did she bother to call if she was not in a place for me to actually do anything? Happens all the time.

A Story About A Passion Play Gone Wrong

I wanted to relay this story I heard the preacher at camp tell about when he went to see a passion play and the rather severe problems they had during the production. I'll do my best to remember all the details since it's been a few weeks since I originally heard it.

As you may know, a passion play is a story concerning the last week of Jesus' life on earth culminating in at least the crucifixion, if not the resurrection as well. Jesus Christ Superstar is a musical passion play, and Passion of the Christ is probably the most well know movie version of the story (as well as the bloodiest, only missing an NC-17 rating because of the subject material).

So, he was watching this passion play, and they reach the crucifixion part where Jesus was hanging on the cross. The actor was actually tied up to this cross and his final line is of course, "It is finished!" after which he bows his head, and the guards come out to stick the spear in his side, and then carry on. Well, after his line, he died and nothing happened. Apparently, the guards missed the cue and never showed. Jesus did the only thing a good Jesus can do in such an instance. He resurrected himself and cried out, more dramatically, "It is finished!" after which he bowed his head again and died. noting that the guards had not arrived, Jesus resurrected himself a second time, and cried out even louder and with more drama, "IT ... IS ... FINISHED!" after which, he died again.

By this time, the guards had apparently realized that they had missed their cue, and so they grabbed their spears and charged out to take care of business. Now, in order to achieve the effect of stabbing the spear in Jesus' side, the spear had a collapsible tip so that the Jesus actor would not be injured and real blood and water would not flow. Well, in their haste, the tardy guards grabbed one of the real spears and not the rigged-to-collapse one, and as they were in a hurry to catch up to their missed cue, they gave Jesus a hearty stab in the side ... where blood and water flowed. Jesus, was a really trooper, though, because the only way you knew anything was wrong was when he breathed in sharply through his teeth and clenched his fists.

Realizing they had actually stabbed Jesus, the guards rapidly got him off the cross and carried him backstage.

So for the resurrection scene, they pulled in second-string Jesus, as first-string Jesus had not had enough time to heal. The scene went on as planned, and at the end of the scene, they had this dramatic ascension whereby second-string Jesus was rigged to a tree behind the stage and slowly ascends into the branches ... or that was the plan. You see, rigs of this nature are carefully counter-balanced to the weight of the individual who is to be using it, and it turns out that first-string Jesus weighed a bit more than second-string Jesus. He told his disciples, "Surely, I am with you, to the very end of the a--" and the rig kicked in and pulled Jesus at blinding speed into the branches of the tree knocking second-string Jesus right out.

Fortunately, they didn't need a third-string Jesus because the play was quite over by that point.